


Ch-ch-changes

by merelyafigment, visionofblue (merelyafigment)



Series: Two Paths Diverged [1]
Category: Oz (TV)
Genre: Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, I would like to note that I hate my brain, Mostly Gen, Why Did I Write This?, but it's gen here, it might be pre-slash in my brain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:42:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26078149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merelyafigment/pseuds/merelyafigment, https://archiveofourown.org/users/merelyafigment/pseuds/visionofblue
Summary: Miguel Alvarez and Tobias Beecher briefly cross paths during the riot. They're both making some changes.
Relationships: Miguel Alvarez & Tobias Beecher, Miguel Alvarez/Tobias Beecher
Series: Two Paths Diverged [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1898122
Comments: 4
Kudos: 4





	Ch-ch-changes

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: bad language, Miguel being very insensitive about mental health issues and other things
> 
> Author's Note: Look, I didn't want this to happen, but it did somehow. While rewatching the show, I may have noticed Alvarez watching Beecher more than I remembered him doing. I mean, he went out of his way to pause and call Beecher a maricon instead of just walking on and ignoring him. Also, Miguel had a few chatting with random inmates moments in the early days, and he asked some occassionally strange questions. Those two things combined these two guys in my head. Written and put up here fairly quickly, because spending more time on this seems unwise.

A blade rested in each hand, easily balanced on Miguel Alvarez's outstretched palms. He weighed them quickly, lifting one, then the other, his eyebrow lifting along with them.

Scalpel would cut faster. It'd be smooth and easy.

Shank would be a rough and hesitant bitch, dragging it out.

Miguel's focus landed between his hands, on the heavy dark uniform shirt laying across his lap. The fabric might fuck with the scalpel's edge, dulling it. He might need it as sharp as possible before all this was over. He'd known this upheaval was coming, if not exactly when, and had managed to snag the weapon and sneak it into Emcity before the shit hit the fan, thankfully.

He flipped the scalpel with skilled fingers before tucking it carefully back away to save it for whatever was going to come for him next.

Rough and bitchy it was. Miguel smirked at the little name tag attached tidily to the shirt. Wasn't his name, obviously. But it wasn't the hack's shirt anymore. _It's mine now, bitch. You're mine. All of you_.

Darker thoughts skittered along the edges of his mind, the flipside to the others, about what exactly it was that he owned now -- _a bunch of bleeding hacks and an unpredictable swirl of chaos and fire that could consume them all_ \-- but he cut that shit away for now as he forced the shank through the fabric of the shirt's sleeves, jagged and slow.

His gaze flicked up briefly at movement approaching the chair he'd taken from the debris and replaced to an upright position to use while he completed his task.

Was only Beecher, so he went back to work.

"Time for a wardrobe change, Alvarez?"

This answered a question Miguel had been too busy to think about or even form before now -- what the fuck was unaffiliated and also surprisingly unpredictable Beecher doing when everything went to hell all around them? (Well, it had already been hell. It was just a hell that belonged to them now.) Miguel hadn't thought of the man at all during the riot until now, probably wouldn't have until afterward if he hadn't landed himself in Miguel's sightline, where they were relatively alone in a little corner of the quad for a moment.

Apparently, the answer was -- Beecher was wandering around like a fucking lunatic.

Miguel paused to eye him. He'd thought he'd had Beecher pegged for a while there -- maricon, weak and dragged down and just another bitch who couldn't make it in here.

"Fuck off, man. I'm in charge now, ain't I?" Miguel's easy scoff didn't really hold much venom. He stopped cutting long enough to give the shirt a proud shake, holding it up a little towards Beecher. _Yeah, in charge. On top of a mountain of shit he might not see the other side of._ Miguel returned to hacking away at a sleeve and ignoring those thoughts. He'd gotten what he wanted, the hostages and a position of power for his boys. He had a voice, and a fucking vote, for once. _And a hell of a lot of weight on his shoulders_. S'fine, he had strong fucking shoulders.

"I ain't the only one that's changing it up. Got a whole new costume, don't you, hermano?" Miguel spared some of his focus for the moment, putting it on this interesting development that was of no real consequence to him.

Turned out, Miguel had been really fucking wrong about Beecher, and watching the other man fucking explode into something strange and new was kind of entertaining at times.

He didn't even look like the same man. He sure as shit didn't look like a lawyer. He looked a little like a homeless dude on PCP, but a tough one. Maybe a hobo who used to be a biker or something, and hadn't been on the streets too long. Miguel really never would've guessed he'd be putting tough and Beecher together harmoniously in the same thought, but these were fucked up times and this was a fucked up place. _It could fuck **you** up pretty easily_.

Beecher spun the pole or pipe or whatever it was he was holding, a lot more skillfully than Miguel would've expected. Where the hell had he found that? And how had he even known to arm himself? See, it wasn't too long ago that Miguel would've figured the former lawyer would be holed up somewhere cowering through this.

That? Was definitely not what the man was doing. Jesus, he was practically strutting through the destruction like a conductor or something.

And then the crazy motherfucker started singing.... something.

" _Ch-ch-changes, turn and face the strange,_  
_Ch-ch-changes, just gonna have to be a different man! Time may change me, but I can't trace time_!" He was loud and unhinged and playing that fucking pole he was holding like a guitar.

It all sort of fit the wreckage around them.

Miguel triumphantly ripped off the first sleeve, and on impulse tossed it at Beecher, a rough laugh rumbling out of his chest at the fucking insanity of it all.

Crazy fucker batted it away with his found weapon, wild grin on his face.

"What the fuck was that, man?" Miguel started on the other sleeve, and it was going faster now that he had a hang of the pressure and rhythm to slice through it.

Beecher feigned horror. "I am deeply disappointed that you've never heard of Bowie, Alvarez. What is this world coming to?" Beecher gestured around them, the smoke from the smoldering dying bonfire, the debris tossed everywhere, his head thrown back like he was beseeching the heavens or some shit.

"You and me, we got different influences, man. I never listened to whatever the fuck that was." Miguel chuckled again, shaking his head. He'd heard of Bowie, maybe, but even not being able to place anything beyond the name, Miguel was pretty sure he didn't sound like _that_.

Fucking Beecher, man. Miguel had a lot of questions for the man, actually. He'd been forming them, one after the other, watching from the sidelines in curiosity as the man gave up and painted his face and bent over. (Miguel had started to lose interest then. That shit wasn't that unique in here, and he'd thought the man's story had reached its end.) Then Beecher had sung and snorted and shattered glass and tied up his enemies and... _shit_ , man. Literal shit.

Turns out, Beecher's was a totally different story than what Miguel had thought. It was a lot more violent and wild, like an arcing livewire Miguel couldn't figure out the path of, and it had held his attention the few times it had happened to play out in front of him.

Wasn't time for any of those questions now, though. Play time was over. Miguel ripped off the other sleeve roughly, seeing the image of the good Father behind his lids for just a second when he blinked, practically hearing the man call _his first name_ , like Miguel could save him. Like anybody could save anything in here. He shrugged that off, too. No time for anything but surviving this shit.

Miguel stood up, shrugging on the uniform shirt, gesturing to Beecher's new accessory with one arm as he did. "You gonna do a little dance number with that?"

Beecher's grin was so fucking wide, and sharp, and yeah -- Alvarez had had no fucking clue that soft face that had let lipstick be forced onto it could ever look like _that_. Dangerous. Not to Miguel, of course, but to somebody.

"Oh, that's not what it's for." Beecher took a swift sure swing at an overturned table, and sure as shit -- that thing _moved_. The table didn't go far, stopped with a scraping clatter, but still. More power there than Miguel would've guessed.

Miguel straightened and smoothed out his new acquisition, still laughing a little, some more, at the crazy fucker's antics. For a second, looking down at his new shirt, he was reminded of like, hunters, taking the hide of their prey or something. He left it unbuttoned, popping on the hat that was his now, too. "How do I look, baby?"

"You look like a leader of men, Alvarez, baby!" Beecher confidently pointed that fucking pole at him, still grinning.

Maybe fucking lunacy was contagious, or maybe it was the lingering smoke, or maybe Miguel just wanted to take a fucking minute before he strode right back into the middle of the shitstorm and tried to control it, but he was fucking chuckling softly again at his strange company. "Yep, that's me, man."

He picked up the walkie talkie, also his now, off the floor, preparing to go back to his boys and his hostages and get through this. He could shoulder this. He'd make it fucking work. Miguel picked up **his** baton, gesturing it towards Beecher even as he started to move away, walking backwards for a second, still keeping an eye on Beecher. "Mine's better."

"Mine still works!" With that, Beecher sent the chair Miguel had been sitting on flying with a demonstrative whack. It spun off nowhere near Miguel, nowhere near a threat, especially with that messed up giggle that accompanied it.

"Who's in charge now, motherfuckers? Ch-ch-changes!" Beecher started to spin away in a different direction, swinging his stick, making some fucking howling noise--

\-- _that's_ where that noise had been coming from, Miguel realized. He'd heard it earlier, when everything was crashing down.

Fucking Beecher.

Who knew?

***  
End

**Author's Note:**

> Lyrics taken from the internet, for David Bowie's "Changes". (They seem wrong? But I went with it. Maybe I've just been mentally singing that chorus wrong all this time.)
> 
> Note: I could not tell exactly what Beecher was swinging around during the riot on my tiny screen, so I cheated and just had Alvarez not exactly know either. Feel free to tell me what it actually was. I also couldn't tell if Miguel "Allergic To Sleeves" Alvarez had cut off the uniform shirt's sleeves, or had just rolled them up, but I went with the former for this.
> 
> There probably could be a follow up where Miguel finally asks some of those questions, if I pondered it long enough. It would probably be slashy. I do not plan to write it, though, because I do not want to set sail on another 'ship no one asked for. I'm supposed to be writing O'Reily/Alvarez! Not this!


End file.
